Manual Cars or Auto Cars? Which one is better for the economy and why?

It is getting so much closer these days with 6-speed automatics becoming standard application. Remember the average size motor today hoovers below 2.0 liter by popularity compared with affordability. There IMO is an advantage still with a standard 5-speed manual with larger than 2.0 and heavier vehicles. An interesting point from several articles I read is that a manual transmission vehicle price is greater than the automatic version so we see a flip/flop from years ago. Their resale value drops and are harder to resell too.